Two Geeks and Their Girl (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)
Page 1
Two Geeks and Their Girl
Amanda “Manny” Croyle hates technology…and it hates her right back. Which is why it annoys her when she’s assigned to an undercover investigation and protective operation for two computer geeks. But it’s not like she has a life. Just a wounded heart and PTSD from her time in the Middle East.
Korbin Temple and Rhys Gilyard are resigned to the fact that Artemis—a top-secret cyber-security project—is the only “woman” in their life. Then they’re assigned an administrative assistant. They’ve learned not to trust sexy women, especially once they suss out Manny’s true identity, but there’s something sweetly haunted about her and they wouldn’t mind a chance to brighten her world.
Manny knows getting personal is a bad idea, but the two men soon win her heart. Unfortunately, unknown criminals want their hands on Artemis. Now it’s a race against time to see if Manny can unravel the mystery before time runs out for one of her men.
Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Romantic Suspense
Length: 53,047 words
TWO GEEKS AND THEIR GIRL
Tymber Dalton
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
TWO GEEKS AND THEIR GIRL
Copyright © 2013 by Tymber Dalton
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62740-370-2
First E-book Publication: August 2013
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
Dear Readers,
If you have purchased this copy of Two Geeks and Their Girl by Tymber Dalton from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.
Regarding E-book Piracy
This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.
The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.
This is Tymber Dalton’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Dalton’s right to earn a living from her work.
Amanda Hilton, Publisher
www.SirenPublishing.com
www.BookStrand.com
DEDICATION
For the two special geeks in my life.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Sometimes, an author just needs to rip loose with a “fun” book to give their brain a rest. This is that book. And yes, there might be more stories set in this world if the characters talk to me loudly enough at some point in the future.
Also, feel free to play “Spot the Cameo Appearances” with this book.
TWO GEEKS AND THEIR GIRL
TYMBER DALTON
Copyright © 2013
Chapter One
“Today in Afghanistan, three American soldiers were killed when an IED—”
Amanda “Manny” Croyle grabbed the remote control and snapped the TV off before tossing the remote to the couch.
Then the shakes started. She found herself, once again, helpless to stop them.
I need a run.
As she struggled to keep her rising anxiety at bay, she hurried into the bedroom and threw open her closet. Five minutes later, she left her apartment and ran down the street at a blistering pace she knew she couldn’t maintain for long.
She also knew she couldn’t afford not to keep it up. Not if she didn’t want her mind to sink into a full-on ugly circuit of grief and survivor’s guilt.
It was a Monday, and the unusually hot May’s stranglehold on the weather kept its muggy fist tightly knotted around the early evening. Even the sea breeze blowing in from the Gulf of Mexico brought little relief as Manny pounded down the sidewalk, out of her apartment complex in Clearwater and headed toward the park near her place.
She knew better than to leave the TV on a channel that carried national news. She’d gotten so wrapped up in trying to figure out how to download an instruction manual for her new iPad that she’d completely lost track of time.
And now every bad memory from her four years overseas had rolled into the forefront of her thoughts with a vengeance.
Every hit of her Asics running shoes on the sidewalk jarred through her body, making her bad right leg throb like a nagging toothache on steroids and helping her focus on that, helping take her thoughts away from memories of distant deserts and jihad fighters and living life with the constant, gnawing knowledge that every footstep you took on a dusty, rocky road could be your last.
Helped take her thoughts away from an explosion that killed her best friend and the love of her life, and would have killed her, too, had he not shoved her out of the way and took the brunt of the blast with his body.
She ran until it was nearly dark over an hour later. Finally, trembling, shaky, and drenched with sweat, she returned home.
* * * *
She stopped by the kitchen to grab a bottle of water from the fridge when the phone rang. After glancing at the caller ID she let out a groan and answered it.
“Hello, Daddy.”
“Hello yourself, young lady. Where’s your tax paperwork? I know you filed an extension, even though I told you not to.”
She cast a guilty glance toward the scanner box sitting on her counter. “I haven’t had a chance to put it all together and get over to the post office to mail it to you.”
“No. That’s not what you’re supposed to do. Don’t tell me you haven’t even installed it yet?”
She turned her back on the box. “I told you, I tried to install it. It wouldn’t install.”
“Did you contact tech support like I told you?”
She hoped he couldn’t hear her aggravated snort. “They put me on hold for thirty minutes and I hung up.”
“Did you try calling back?”
“I have too much to do to sit on hold. Why can’t I just mail you my papers and receipts?”
“Because I bought you that scanner so you wouldn’t have to. Most of my clients started using one by late last year. And a lot of them are senior citizens who aren’t great with computers to start with. So don’t give me any excuses.”
Martin Croyle was former Army, retired a major, and it showed. He then became a CPA and now, approaching his second retirement, he had jumped on every technological bandwagon that had raced down the pike in his years handling taxes.
It seemed everyone was bound and determined to drag her, kicking and screaming, into the modern ages.
He’d sent her the receipt scanner shortly after New Year’s and demanded she run all her receipts and paperwork through it and mail him the files on the also-enclosed thumb drive so he could do her taxes.
After one failed installation attempt, she boxed it back up.
And there it still sat, months later, mocking her.
“Get that computer guy at work to come over and install it for you. Isn’t he single? Two birds and all that crap. Cook him dinner.”
“Yeah, and he’s also gay. I’m not his type, Daddy.”
“Look, give me a time and date and I’ll pay one of those SWAT Geek guys to come over to your place to install it. Maybe he’ll be single.”
“He’ll also probably be right out of high school and still fighting pimples. Listen, Daddy, I just got back from a run. I need to hit the shower.”
His tone immediately changed from badgering to concerned. “Are you all right, sweetheart? It’s awfully late for you to be out running.”
She closed her eyes and fought back the tears. “I just let the news stay on too long.”
“Aw. I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath she heard on her end. “And here I am, pestering you about this now.”
“It’s okay, Daddy.” She glanced over her shoulder at the damned box. “I promise I’ll talk to Tom tomorrow and see if he can come install it for me.”
“Thank you. I’d ask if you want to talk to your mother, but she’s still out with her friends.”
“How’s the weather out there?”
“Snowed in Yellowstone yesterday.”
“Wow.” Her parents had realized their dream of moving to Montana. He’d finished most of this year’s tax clients from long-distance at their new home outside of Bozeman. “It’s hot here.”
He laughed. “It’s Florida. Of course it’s hot.” Then he paused before asking, “You going to be okay?”
“Yeah, I just need a shower.” After getting off the phone with him, she shot another evil glare at the scanner box before she finally managed to grab a bottle of water from the fridge. Then she headed to the bathroom. Unfortunately, the conversation with her father had been an all-too-brief distraction from the reason why she’d been out running in the first place.
As she stood in her shower and cried while the water sluiced over her body, she wondered not for the first time when the “acceptance” part of the grief process her shrink and fellow PTSD survivors talked about would kick in.
Chapter Two
Tuesday morning, Manny swallowed two ibuprofen to tone down the song in her leg before heading to the office housing Sawyer Security Services, where she was not only a lead investigator for them, but a firearms instructor as well.
As usual, she was the first one in, since it was only seven thirty and no one else was due in until nine.
Today, her boss surprised her. Rob Sawyer let himself in a little after eight. “How’d I know I’d find you here?” he asked from her open doorway.
She shrugged but didn’t bother looking up from her computer. “I do my job.”
“You don’t have a life.”
“I don’t need a life. I have a job.”
“All work and no play, Manny.”
She looked at him over the top of the reading glasses she wore to work on the computer. “Screw you.”
He grinned, annoying her. “You say that now. You haven’t heard what your next assignment is.”
Now she sat back in her chair as she pulled off her reading glasses. “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to set me up, you sadistic bastard?”
“Because I am.” He headed for his office.
She silently fumed as she stood to follow him. He knew her far too well, knew she couldn’t let that sit. “It’s not bad enough you gave me that damn thing yesterday, now you’re torturing me?”
He set his laptop case on his desk before rounding it to sit. “Do you realize you’re the only one on our staff who complained about being given an iPad? Everyone else loves them. In fact, you’re the only employee I had to order to take it home and learn it.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Me and technology don’t mix. You know that.”
“You work your computer just fine.”
“I didn’t sign up to do tech security, Rob. You hired me for my other skills. If that’s changed, tell me now and save us both a buttload of aggravation—”
He waved both hands at her. “At ease, Croyle.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “Holy shit, it’s not even nine and you already have me wanting a drink.” He pointed at one of the two chairs in front of his desk. “Sit. And ditch the ’tude, girlfriend.”
She sat, already certain she wasn’t going to like what he had to say.
“I got a call late yesterday after you’d left. Friend of mine from college, Charles Ormond. You might have heard about his company.”
She let her eyebrows arch but didn’t give up any more emotion than that. “Ormond Technologies?”
“Bingo.” He unzipped his laptop case and took it out, getting it set up on his desk. “Chuck’s a great guy, made a name for himself over the years in the tech sector. Not just here, but nationally.”
“He runs the largest tech company in the Tampa Bay area. Network systems and hardware, right?”
“And who says you aren’t a techie?”
She glared at him.
“Anyway,” he continued, “he’s got two wunderkind working for him. They’re currently in charge of a project he’s spearheading that he’s hoping to market to the Department of Homeland Security. Cyber security kind of stuff. To help combat cyber terrorism.”
“I don’t see where I come into this. Tom is our computer guru and tech adviser.”
“Chuck is worried about the safety of his two guys. There have been a few strange things that have happened over the past couple of weeks. He thinks it’s all related. His guys, however, are clueless.”
“Why doesn’t he call the police?”
“That’s the problem. It’s nothing he can put his finger on. Sure, they might just be coincidences. Nothing criminal has happened yet that he can file a police report about to tie back to what they’re working on.”
“I still don’t see where I fit into this.”
He leaned back in his chair, smiling as he clasped his hands together behind his head. “From tomorrow until the foreseeable future, you’re assigned to protect these guys.”
“Okay.”
“Undercover.”
She blinked. “What?”
His grin widened. “You heard me.”
“I’m not a tech person. What part of that didn’t I make clear? Not that it’s anything you don’t already know.”
“Ah, that’s the beauty of it. Chuck has a program in place where he hires veterans. Sort of a job retraining program. You’re going to pose as an administrative assistant assigned to work with these two programmers.”
She blinked again, staring. “Okay, good one.” She started to push herself up out of the chair. “Ha, ha.”
“Sit. I’m not kidding.”
She froze before slowly lowering herself back into the chair. No, from the look on his face, he didn’t appear to be kidding. “Let me get this straight. You want me to work undercover at a tech company, pr
otecting two geeks from some unknown and as of yet unconfirmed threat, and you want me to pretend to be their secretary?”
“Administrative assistant. Yes.”
“I thought you liked me.”
He smiled. “There’s not a person I can think of who’d be better for this job.”
“So you do hate me.”
“Manny, it’s time we dragged you kicking and screaming into the computer age. I know you’d be fine with using feather quills dipped in ink and writing on papyrus scrolls, but it’s time for you to suck it up and move into modern times.”
“Computers hate me. You know that.”
“They don’t hate you. Your mistake is you show them fear.” He tapped on his laptop. “We’re meeting Chuck for lunch today at eleven.”
“So that’s why you’re early. Wanted to ambush me before I could escape.”
He jabbed a finger at her. “You’re the best person I’ve got in this office when it comes to protection and undercover. Don’t think I don’t know that. I expect you to bring the same high level of professionalism to this assignment that you do to every assignment you’ve undertaken since working for me.”
She got up and headed toward his door without a reply.
“Do I make myself clear?” he called after her.
She replied without looking back by raising a one-fingered salute as she headed out the door, leaving him laughing in her wake.
* * * *
Tuesday morning, and the week’s definitely gone to shit already. “You’re an ass.” Korbin Temple slammed the refrigerator door shut.